HOW TO PRONOUNCE
contra
/ˈkɑntɹə/
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American Pronunciation Guide · 0:55
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What does contra mean?
preposition
- Against; contrary or opposed to; in opposition or contrast to.
adverb
- Contrary to something.
noun
- A deal to swap goods or services.
More meanings (7)
noun
- An entry (or account) that cancels another entry (or account).
- (informal) Any of the musical instruments in the contrabass range, e.g. contrabassoon, contrabass clarinet or, especially, double bass.
- A contra dance.
- A member of any of various rightist guerrilla groups violently opposing the socialist Sandinista government of Nicaragua and secretly funded by the United States government in the 1980s.
- (derogatory) A conservative; originally tied to Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries.
- (obsolete) A country dance.
verb
- To undo; to reverse.
Definitions regrouped for readability · CC BY-SA 4.0
IPA pronunciation
/ˈkɑntɹə/
Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗Pronunciation varies by speaker and region. About these dictionary pronunciations.
In the pages of books
See this word in context.
There are places in Contra Costa county where they do well, though some parts of the county do not have enough summer heat.
The last chapter, which sums up and balances in a mass all the arguments contra and pro, will, I think, be useful to you.
More book examples (3)
This is true even of passional crimes, for a pro and contra must have presented themselves in spite of the lightninglike swiftness of the act.
In the seventeenth century Thomas Hobbes gave the first impulse to the whole modern discussion of ethical principles in his theory of bellum omnium contra omnes.
“Si quid Socrates ant Aristippus contra morem et consuetudinem fecerunt, idem sibi ne arbitretur licere: magnis enim illi et divinis bonis hanc licentiam assequebantur.”